Lake County Elections Board officials are preparing for the day — in the not-too-distant future — when the county will have to purchase new voting machine equipment.

The county last purchased 864 iVotronic electronic voting machines from Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems and Software in December 2005 for a total price of $2,749,194, said Janet F. Clair of the Elections Board.

Federal funding paid $2,330,770 of that cost through the federal Help America Vote Act and Lake County paid $418,423 toward the purchase, Clair said.

That purchase was required to ensure the county was compliant with a new state requirement at the time that voting equipment provide a voter-verified paper audit trail. Elections Board members said Tuesday at a meeting they were relieved that the Ohio General Assembly passed a bill last week which would eliminate the need for Lake County to purchase 35 additional voting machines before the end of the year.

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However, they acknowledged the machines the county has now won’t last forever and it’s possible the county may eventually have to switch to a more paper-based system.

A system switch is not set in stone, but voting machine vendors currently aren’t making a new generation of electronic voting machines that function just like the ones the county uses now, Elections Board members said.

ES&S recently conducted a demonstration of the company’s next generation of voting machines that Elections Board Member Thomas A. Tagliamonte was able to witness.

Tagliamonte, also Lake County Democratic Party chairman, told Elections Board members that he has concerns because these machines would work more like paper ballot voting systems in other counties, rather than how the electronic equipment works in Lake County.

He explained the demonstration showed a voter would get a blank ballot and stick it in the machine, then a poll worker calls up the voter’s precinct so he or she can cast a ballot.

Once the voter is done, the machine would print out the completed ballot with a barcode on it and the voter would stick the ballot into a scanner so that the vote could be recorded, Tagliamonte said.

“There’s some concern about that because some people might think it’s a receipt,” Tagliamonte said.

He also said the county also would have new expenses such as delivering paper to each polling location, set up polling booths and other costs associated with changing systems.

Elections Board Member Dale H. Fellows, who also is Lake County Republican Party chairman, said there are some other manufacturers who have equipment in the conceptualization phase, but none are yet certified for use in Ohio.

“People in Lake County are going to look at this as a step backward in my opinion,” Fellows said.

There is still time before any final decision needs to be made on purchasing new equipment and technology may evolve, said Election Board members, who indicated other counties that use electronic voting equipment aren’t thinking about making new machine purchases until 2017 — after the next presidential election.

However, Elections Board members said they want to make sure Lake County commissioners are aware that it won’t be that long until expenditures will need to be made because the equipment approaches 10 years old.

Elections Board Director Arch Kimbrew said the department has requested a budget hearing with commissioners that would be held after Jan. 20.

He said the voting machine issue would be discussed with commissioners during the hearing.

Tagliamonte also requested ES&S to come to Lake County to do an equipment demonstration so that Elections Board members, staff and county commissioners could attend.

In other action, Elections Board members voted to give staff salaried employees a 2.5 percent raise for 2014.

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John is a veteran multimedia journalist who covers government and politics in Lake County. He loves running and Cleveland sports. Reach the author at jhutchison@news-herald.com
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